Hear us Roar

This week's guest is Leilani Garrett (After the Burn, Palmetto Publishing, August 2024). Leilani shares sage advice from her first writing mentor, how her debut incorporated her struggles both personally and in the tech world as a woman of color, and how she first lost her editor, then her agent, but still kept going. Hear about the workbook with exercises which she created as a companion to her novel and her adjunct career working with corporate America to use storytelling techniques to create empathy in business teams.
 
Leilani spent more than two decades in corporate sales and leadership, navigating high-stakes environments, leading teams, and closing multi-million-dollar deals. But behind every win, she saw what most companies were missing: connection. In rooms focused on performance metrics, she paid attention to what moved people, what shut them down, and what made them feel seen.
 
Today, she's a creative force redefining leadership, connection, and culture through storytelling. A celebrated fiction author and sought-after speaker, she brings radical empathy to the stage and the page. Her work bridges personal growth and organizational impact, helping leaders and teams break down silos, build trust, and show up more fully human. With a voice that's as bold as it is warm, Leilani equips her audiences with the tools to transform not just how they work, but who they become.
 
To learn more about Leilani, go to https://www.leilani-garrett.com

Our podcast guest this week is Erica Colahan (The Oystercatcher of Southwark, Chrism Press, July 2024). A dual timeline historical novel set in turn-of-the-century Philadelphia and based on Erica's great-great-grandmother's dramatic story, this novel was born out of Erica's desire to explore her family's history and resulted in various serendipitous discoveries including another whole branch of her family. We discuss scenes she avoided writing, how she had to kill several darlings during editing, how to build a social media platform from scratch, and what Stephen King taught her about writing.
Erica Colahan is the award-winning author of The Oystercatcher of Southwark, a third-place winner in the 2025 Association of Catholic Publishers Excellence in Publishing Awards, and the Historical Fiction Company's 2024 Wells Time Travel-Dual Timeline Category bronze medal winner. Based on the true story of her great-great-grandmother, the novel explores the profound love of a mother for her children and the redemptive hope that transcends time.
Living in the Philadelphia region with her large family, Erica relies on copious amounts of coffee to keep up with her busy offspring while working full-time and pursuing her hobbies. A numbers gal working in the accounting department, Erica finds time for reading and creative writing every day. For relaxation, Erica loves to knit, kayak on the lake, and listen to her children say "Mom, Mom!" all day long.
To learn more about Erica, go to https://ericacolahan.com/

This week's guest is Cathelina Duvert (The Box, indie published, July 2024). Over 20 years in the making, this debut novel initially sprang from the author's own struggles with depression and her desire to use her degree in creative writing and her knowledge of the publishing industry to fashion a novel focusing on this mental health issue for a woman of color. She received invaluable help from WFWA's mentor program but because of the adult themes in her novel and her day job as a teacher, she chose to publish under a pen name.
 Cathelina Duvert's debut novel, The Box, was born from her own experiences with depression. Recognized for her work, Duvert received an Honorable Mention in the 2024 Chapter One Writing Competition by Black Writers Workspace. Just one year later, Cathelina earned First Place in the same competition in 2025 for her forthcoming sophomore novel. She continues to share her journey through her writing, shedding light on the complexities of mental health with authenticity, focusing on how five specific strategies can help with the healing process. She lives in New York City with her twin sister and her rescue kitten Maxie.
 
 
 For more information on Cathelina and her works, visit www.cathelinaduvert.com

Our podcast guest this week is Amily D'Nas (Beneath the Swaying Willow, indie published, July 2024). Amily joined an existing writing group when she met a member through her day job and found a home with supportive and experienced authors who encouraged her to write a novel informed by her parent's experiences during the Vietnam War era and the family trauma that followed. We discuss why she chose to indie published her debut and the pluses and minuses of being in control of everything, including the cover design and the book tour.
Amily D'Nas was born and raised in Southern New England and now calls South Florida home. She earned her MBA from the University of Massachusetts and is a member of the Authors Guild, the Chicago Writers Association, and the Women's Fiction Writer's Association.  Her award-winning, debut, historical fiction novel, Beneath the Swaying Willow, raises awareness of the mistreatment of our Vietnam veterans who returned home to a divided nation and aims to educate readers and reduce stigma associated with PTSD and veteran suicide. She is a proud supporter of our nation's military veterans and survivors of suicide loss.
To learn more about Amily, go to https://amilydnas.com/

This week's guest is Sharon Wishnow (The Pelican Tide, Lake Union, June 2024). Sharon describes how she used both her networking contacts and her background as a non-fiction editor to research the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and its devastating effect on the Gulf Coast, in particular the Grand Isle area of Louisiana. We discuss the iterations her novel underwent during the acquisition phase and the seven editors Lake Union gave her to hone her story, including a Cajun proofreader and a sensitivity reader as well as her deep dive into how to write about animals, in this case a brown pelican named Gumbo. Listen to the end for Sharon's advice to newer writers about what it takes to succeed in traditional publishing.
Sharon J. Wishnow is a transplanted New Englander who makes her home in Northern Virginia. In addition to writing upmarket fiction with environmental themes, Sharon writes non-fiction in the science, technology, and business categories with a passion for research, seashells, birds, and the ocean.
Sharon is the former Vice President of Communications for the Women's Fiction Writers Association (WFWA), the founder of Women's Fiction Day, and is the Editorial Advisor of the WFWA magazine, WriteOn!  She has an MFA from George Mason University. She regularly speaks about research and writing and publishes a regular newsletter, Research for Writers and Other Curious People. When she's not writing or researching, you can find her in the garden, watching the birds in her backyard, or feedinghttp peanuts to her local squirrels.
To learn more about Sharon, go to https://sharonwishow.com. 
To learn more about how to help Grand Isle rebuild, go to https://restoregrandisle.com/#jointheeffort